Half Naked Since 2009

Our banister has been half naked since August 2009.

Let me clarify...

When we bought the house, the banister looked like this:

(sorry these photos are dark... they were taken pre-Canon Rebel)

 Not too shabby, right?

Well, before you jump to conclusions, let's take a closer look at that oh so lovely dark brown railing...

Oh, it was painted brown, all right...

Then scraped (perhaps gnawed on by small woodland creatures?) and varnished...

I'm not really sure what look the previous owners were going for... Maybe the decrepit old house in shambles look?

Whoever was responsible for varnishing over that mess was obviously partaking of some very strong spirits. I'll put my money on moonshine. Yay, Appalachia!

Completely appalled by the condition of the whole staircase, I stripped the railing & roughly sanded it with a random orbit sander not long after we first moved into the house.

 It took forever. 

That's a lot of railing, my friends.

Once I finished removing the crappy paint job, I discovered HUGE gouges in the banister.

Geez! What did they do? Take an ax to the rail? Keep pet beavers in the house?

The gouges looked like they had been filled in by a 3 year old. Not encouraging for someone planning to have the classiest railing this side of the Continental Divide.

It would be ok. I would find a way to make it look good, despite the gouges. And now at least most of the nasty brown paint was gone.

I would have the whole staircase project done before Labor Day 2009 when I was to start my first ever job as a high school teacher...

And then, right before school started up, we received the fabulous news that we were pregnant with this little hooligan:

Staircase Plan =  Out the Window

Now, to find someone willing to finish sanding, staining, and varnishing this thing... because my pregnant self wasn't going anywhere near those stain  fumes...

Two years (and a few Christmases) later...

(to be continued)